How To Turn Building A Workbench Into A Really Long Project.

     There is a lot to talk about tonight, so let's just get into it. I mentioned on Sunday night, a couple of things, but more have come up since then. The first thing is going to be about that guy who tried to run me into the back of a semi truck. This happened Friday morning on the way to work. I left my neighborhood, behind a car, and quickly got around it and just kept riding. He was a casual 3 car lengths behind me almost the entire way down the road. About 300 yards in front of me was the semi truck stopped at a light. No need to really worry about it, by the time I would get to it, the light would be green and the truck would be moving. All of a sudden, the car that was traveling behind me, sped up and slowed down ride beside me. Still not worried about anything. I had no plans of darting out or anything like that, I would just simply bide my time.  As we got closer to the truck, the guy in the car started pulling closer to my lane and me. The light was taking a little longer to change than I had anticipated so I began to slow down. The car veered further into my lane at this point and slowed even more, when he clearly had an open lane, and should not be slowing at the pace that he was. I hit the brakes a little harder so that he would be forced to pass me, as I veered further over in my lane. The light changed green and he still didn't speed up. The truck began to move, and he finally gave up what very he was trying to do to me, and took off. I let him get some distance on the truck before I signaled and got over into his lane. I overtook the truck and got back over into the originally lane I was in. There was another light ahead of me, and the car was already stopped at it. As I got closer, I slowed down to avoid being next to him. Before I came to a stop, the light changed green and I took off. I was across the intersection before the guy even had a chance to move. There was no chance for hi to try anything funny again.

      I have no idea why this guy was trying to do this, but it isn't the first time someone has tried something like this. Some people just seem to have a deep seeded hatred of motorcycles and riders, and they will go to extremes to show it off. I wasn't speeding, or doing anything erratic, I was just minding my own business. I saw a quite from a motorcycle cop not too long ago, and he said that we wished everyone was forced to ride a motorcycle for 1 year. At the end of that year, half of those people would be dead, and the other half would understand what the safety concerns are for a motorcyclist.

     Now for more fun stuff. Real quick, there was something I forgot to mention about the ride on Saturday. When I was riding south on A1A to Sebastian, I came across a house that was being built or redone or something, but it was amazingly beautiful form what was already done to it. The yard was fenced off by a large fence, but just over the top of the fence, I could see the tops of vehicles. A very large box truck, a bus, and a van with a name in white letters on the side of it. The name read non other than Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice has gotten into house design and this was apparently the latest one he was working on. They weren't working when I went by, more than likely because of the Memorial Day Weekend, but the vehicles were there. It was pretty neat to see that, and I'm looking forward to seeing the house when it is done, Only the outside of it of course.

     I made Sunday a project day, and that project was finally putting together the workbench I got from Harbor Freight. I needed to clear out a bunch of boxes first, so I spent about a half hour cutting them all down. Then it was on to building the table. This is what it looked like in the box.

     Doesn't look like much right? I set all the metal parts out, and found the nuts and bolts to go with them. I found the instructions for assembly and began to read. No, I'm not one of those people that finds the instructions just to throw them away. The first thing I discovered, was that the instructions were a little vague. I meandered my way through them though, and about an hour into the project, I was able to get to this.

     Progress was being made. It was being made slowly, but it was being made. The frame for the bottom was complete. I had Prince and Bowie playing over the speaker, and life was good. It was hot, but it was good. My garage has a western exposure, so the I had to keep the door down, and only partially cracked to let some air in, but it wan't enough, and it was hot, like 100 degrees hot. I took a few water brakes in there, and a few dance breaks when the mood struck me. After a little while longer, I got to this point.

     At that point, all I had left to do, was get the bottom shelf and table top put on. That turned out to be more difficult than I thought. The bottom shelf was a breeze, but the table top had a very small space to squeeze into, and it just wasn't going. After a while of fighting with it, and it was a long while. I finally decided to throw the instructions out the window, and do it my own way. I was following the instructions to a T at this point, but they weren't working anymore. I took the top half off, and I was able to get the table top in with ease. I put the top back on, and didn't really like the very top, so I tried to make a few adjustments to improve on the design. That didn't work out so well, and had to revert it back to the way it was supposed to be. I got a few more pictures of it in various stages of getting things on it and put to my satisfaction. I think it came out pretty good.

     This is where it is agent to sit for now. I still have a bunch of things to move around in the garage and some things to get rid of all together, but it fits in where it is nicely. In the last picture you can see that I have the light on in  the workbench. That is a nice little feature as well as the three outlets that run along the right hand side of it. Rather convenient if I do say so. I got all the important things in their place. My Helmets on top, my boots on the bottom, as well as all my cleaning supplies and lubricants. The drawers have some tools in them, I have more tools to buy, and there is plenty of room in those drawers for them. I do need to get some kind of cloth material for the drawer bottoms. I have old shop towels in one of them for now, to keep the tools from moving all around when I open the drawer, but I want to get something I can cut to the right size. I was thinking about just buying some black bath towels and cutting them up, but if I put my head to it, I'm pretty sure I can come up with something better than that. I'll figure it out. One more thing garage related, and this is where it officially goes from garage to lounge, as in Ultimate Motorcycle Lounge. I ordered something over the weekend, and it arrived today. This is what really brings the class to it.

     Yep, its the "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere" sign. I found it, and got it for a good price. The picture on the right is where it is located as of now, but that is going to change. That is just a temporary spot until I can move things around. When everything is moved into place, it will be directly above the workbench. Now you may be saying to yourself, " Is that at all necessary?" Yes, yes it is, and I'll tell you why. Even though I stopped drinking, this sign is there to remind me, that I have to cut loose every once in a while, and not take life so seriously. It's about the philosophy, and I"m a huge Parrothead. Oh yeah, and those blinds suck. They will be replaced before all of this is done. I might even make some kind of custom wooden slats that slide open and closed. I just have to figure it all out, but I have ideas. Before you even ask, yes, Saki loves the sign, because Saki is a party animal.

     I have a few videos for you tonight. tonight was the premier of America's Got Talent. I find that I am truly only watching it for the acts now. The judges don't interest me much, and now that Nick Cannon isn't there, it really is all about the talent. Tyra Banks is the new host, replacing Nick Cannon, and she did a fine job, but she just isn't the entertainer that Nick is. The edits even left her out of most of the show, where as, when Nick was the host, he was all over the place. Make she just needs time. On to the acts. They had the obligatory, really bad acts, but there were three that stood out for me, and although the stood out for their talent, they also stood out because of how surprising they were. The whole time I have been writing this entire post, I've been thinking about how I was going to present these videos to you. Tell you a little bit about my thoughts, or just put them out there, so you can experience them similarly to the way I did. I think I'll throw them out there for you, and then say a little bit about them after.









     If I remember right, this was the exact order that I saw these acts in. The first one which is 12 year old Merrick Hanna blew me away. That kid directly interpreted that song into dance. He told a story with his movement. I said to myself that if that isn't a golden buzzer act, then I don't know what is. Puddles Pity Party, was everything I didn't think it was going to be. I assumed that it was going to be a prop act similar to Tape Face from last season, but when He all of a sudden began to sing, I was thrown completely off balance, and he was spectacular. Finally we have Darci Lynne. This was one of those acts that I just knew was going to be a train wreck. I hoped that it wouldn't be, but I just knew what was coming. AGT has a way of doing that to you. They build up an act and then it is bad and you feel terrible for the person. This was not that. She was a better ventriloquist than most of the adults doing it around the world, and the little bit where she began to sing out loud and the puppet placed it's hand over her mouth so that she wouldn't take the puppets spotlight was fantastic. She did get the golden buzzer, which means that she goes directly through to the live shows and skip all the other rounds. I personally think that Merrick should have gotten it, but He will find his way there in the end. I just have that feeling about him. Puddles may have lost the element of surprise already, so I'll just have to see how he pans out through the rounds.

     This brings us to Favorite Song of the Week. This one goes back a couple of decades and was brought back to my attention because I'm learning how to play the guitar now. I've always loved this song, and I think it's time that I learn how to play it, so Thursday when I go to class, I"m going to bring it up to my teacher. This German heavy metal band put out their first album in 1988. I had that album. I never really heard much from them after that, but apparently they still tour all over and even put out albums as late as 2013. I'll have to look those up. This was one of those bands that was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin. You can hear it in their songs, from the vocals to the melodic guitars riffs. They could play hard, but they were the softer side of metal, Headbangers with serious musical chops. They were in that big wave of metal ballads that came out, and took the world by storm before grunge could kill it all. Here is Kingdom Come with "What Love Can Be".


     Thank you for taking the time to peruse all my meanderings tonight. I"m currently listening to this song as I finish this up. When it's done, my head will hit the pillow. Peace in and goodnight.